The elephant in the housing legislation room is S.B. 827, but there are many other housing bills in the works.

Senator Wiener's bill, aimed at making it easier to build housing at a time when the state is suffering from a debilitating shortage, has, to put it mildly, ignited a robust debate in activist circles.

Last Thursday, the California State Assembly Housing and Community Development Committee narrowly killed a controversial bill that would have repealed the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act, which limits local jurisdictions’ ability to enact or strengthen rent control laws. In order to pass out of the committee, the bill — A.B. 1506 — needed four votes, but […]

Late last month, Governor Jerry Brown signed a package of 15 bills designed to begin addressing California’s historic housing crisis.

It won’t be an easy task to get the votes necessary to pass some of bigger-ticket legislation, like S.B. 2 and S.B. 3.

A group of California Assemblymembers, including Speaker Anthony Rendon (D-Paramount), gathered yesterday for a press conference to continue to the beat the drum for immediate and long-term action to address the state’s dire housing crisis. The nine lawmakers, including Assemblymember David Chiu (D-San Francisco) and Assemblymember Richard Bloom (D-Santa Monica), were joined by Tameeka Knox, […]

A report by California's Legislative Analyst’s Office released Wednesday lays out the limits of state power to solve California’s worsening housing crisis. It has bad news for those hoping Sacramento would be able to rescue the state from decades of local anti-development policies.

At a press conference in San Francisco Friday, state legislators announced their plans to tackle California’s growing housing crisis. As a lack of new housing construction continues to make California unaffordable for all but the wealthiest households, Assemblymembers Phil Ting (D-San Francisco), Cecilia Aguiar-Curry (D-Winters), Richard Bloom (D-Santa Monica), Rob Bonta (D-Oakland), and Kevin Mullin […]

Governor Brown's budget proposal explicitly states that money for affordable housing will not come out of the State’s General Fund and no new funding sources will be available without significant reform to local laws that currently stand in the way of housing growth

Housing affordability in California is the worst it has been in state history according to a report from the CA Dept. of Housing and Community Development. The affordability crisis is due to a dire housing shortage and an overall failure of CA cities to allow enough new housing growth to absorb growing demand.